Downtown Business Owners Hope New “Crawl” Brings Crowds

Customers gather around the wine bar at Urban Bottle during the Casper Art Walk on Thursday, May 4, in downtown Casper. (Dan Cepeda, Oil City)

Downtown business owners are banding together in hopes of keeping downtown energy high.

The first-ever Third Thursday Downtown Crawl kicks off this week, which involves over a dozen downtown retail and food establishments.

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“Our goal in starting this event is to get more people out and to all of the new businesses that have opened in the last year,” said Yellowstone Garage general manager Garijo Brierley in an email to Oil City. Brierley is one of a number of downtown business managers or owners who met over the past several weeks brainstorming ideas for the crawl.

The idea is similar to the successful Downtown Art Walk, which was originally intended heighten awareness for the downtown arts community and grew into an event unto itself. The crawl is designed as a compliment to the art walk to bring more people downtown on different days.

“We have created stamp card similar to the one for the artwalk, there will be prize baskets the participants can win by visiting the different businesses on the card,” said Brierley. Participating businesses will have an activity or sale for customers to earn stamps for the card, such as buying featured appetizers or drinks, a scavenger hunts or physical activities. Customers who get their card filled can earn prizes during an ending “ceremony” at one of the businesses near the end of the night.

“We are so excited to add another free fun event to the Old Yellowstone District and downtown,” said Brierley